Congratulations to CQT's new graduates

Thirteen students with the Centre have been awarded PhD degrees in 2016

11 July 2015

Pictured at the commencement ceremony on 7 July are CQT graduates in their green-trimmed gowns with CQT faculty: (from left to right) Cai Yu, Ved Prakash, Rahul Jain, Dimitris Angelakis, Berge Englert and Dai Jibo.

Physics PhD graduate Tan Peng Kian was a Valedictorian for his commencement ceremony on 9 July. Listen to his speech starting from 1:43:30 in the webcast above.

For students, the moment that defines the end of their PhD is the thesis defense. That's when they present their years of hard work and hard-won knowledge to a panel of examiners. The Commencement that comes after that, when the degree is officially awarded, is pure celebration. This year CQT celebrates for 13 new PhD graduates – find a full list of new Doctors and their thesis titles below.

Eleven students graduated from the PhD@CQT programme. "I felt very moved, particularly when they played the national anthem" said Dai Jibo, who attended Commencement on 7 July. Jibo had moved to Singapore from China aged 15 to take up an educational scholarship. Every morning, he attended a flag-raising ceremony at his school at which the national anthem played. His thesis research was on entanglement witnesses.

CQT also congratulates Md. Tanvirul Islam and Tan Peng Kian on their graduation. Tanvir completed his PhD with the NUS School of Computing, and had been supervised by CQT Principal Investigator Stephanie Wehner. Tan Peng Kian did his PhD with the NUS Department of Physics, co-supervised by CQT Principal Investigator Christian Kurtsiefer and Associate Professor Phil Chan Aik Hui.

Peng Kian was Valedictorian for his commencement ceremony on 9 July, telling his fellow graduates: "This is it, this is what it's all been for, isn't it? It is now our time to put to use everything we've learnt, all our experience, all our mistakes, into this longest open book exam of them all – life." Peng Kian, whose doctoral research has involved applying quantum optics techniques to astronomical measurements, continues his project as a Research Fellow at CQT.

Most CQT graduates continue in academia, taking up positions in countries including the UK, US and Hong Kong. Other CQT graduates are finding roles in industry and government. Ved Prakash, who completed his thesis in the CQT computer science group, is among them.

Ved is working as a Data Scientist for Singapore's Ministry of Defence. In an interview for CQT's 2015 Annual Report, he said "We are given an engineering problem and then have to explore methods to solve it. Like in research, this involves reading papers and building models. My experience at CQT helps me with the process of deciding how to attack a problem. The discussions in group meetings also trained me in how to present my work."